Citizens Against UFO Secrecy
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🏢 Organization
Contents 8
| Type | Organization |
|---|---|
| Also known as | CAUS |
| On the Timeline | 5 events, 1978–1999 |
Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS) was an American non-profit activist group, formed in 1977, that used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the courts to try to force federal and state agencies to release classified information about UFOs.[1] It was co-founded by the attorney Peter Gersten and the researcher W. Todd Zechel, and Gersten became its leading figure.[3] Its best-known case was a suit against the National Security Agency that ended in 1980 when a judge accepted the agency's secret reasons for withholding its UFO records.[1][4] The group later became inactive, and by 2023 its non-profit status had been revoked.[1]
Aims
CAUS described itself as an Arizona-based public interest organisation founded on four principles:[1][2]
- Contact. It believed that the planet and its people were interacting and in contact with a non-human form of intelligence.
- Opposition to secrecy. It was against all secrecy surrounding this contact.
- Right to know. It held that the public had an absolute and unconditional right to know about the contact.
- The courts. It believed that the judicial process was the way to set the truth free and end the secrecy.
Founders
Peter Gersten, born in 1942, trained at Brooklyn Law School. He worked as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, then as a partner in a New York law firm specialising in criminal defence, and later in the Navajo County Public Defender's Office in Arizona before retiring to Sedona. He became known as "the UFO lawyer".[3] Zechel had joined the UFO group Ground Saucer Watch (GSW) claiming to have worked in covert government roles and to know of the intelligence community's suppression of UFO evidence. He inspired GSW's interest in seeking CIA records.[3]
The CIA case
In 1977 Gersten, who had offered free legal help to several UFO groups and heard back only from GSW, represented GSW in a FOIA request and then a lawsuit against the CIA.[3] According to Gerald Haines's 1997 history of the CIA's UFO involvement, GSW sued in September 1977. The agency agreed to a "reasonable search", which found 355 documents totalling about 900 pages, and on 14 December 1978 released all but 57 documents of about 100 pages.[5] On 1 January 1979 The New York Times reported GSW's leader, William Spaulding, as saying the papers showed the CIA had been secretly involved in UFO surveillance since 1949 and that the cover-up was "massive".[6] GSW then sued for the withheld documents. Haines says the court dismissed that suit in May 1980, finding the CIA's search adequate.[5]
The released files were, in Philip Klass's view, unremarkable. According to the Skeptical Inquirer, the withheld pages were kept back mainly because they might reveal surveillance capabilities. In one, for example, the CIA had listened in on a Cuban Air Force pilot discussing a UFO.[3]
The earlier version of this article said Gersten sued the CIA in 1977 and the agency released more than 900 pages in 1979. The suit was brought on behalf of Ground Saucer Watch rather than CAUS. Haines dates the release to December 1978, and it was reported in early January 1979.[3][5][6] See CAUS lawsuit and the CIA UFO papers.
The NSA case
In 1980 Gersten sued the National Security Agency on behalf of CAUS.[1][3] The NSA said it had found 239 UFO-related documents, 79 of which came from other agencies, many produced between 1958 and 1979.[4] Eugene F. Yeates, its chief officer of policy, filed two affidavits: an unclassified one, and a 21-page "in camera" affidavit classified Top Secret Umbra for the judge, Gerhard A. Gesell, alone. The affidavits argued that release would compromise the interception of foreign communications.[4][7] On 18 November 1980 Gesell refused to order the release after reading the classified affidavit.[1][7] The case was appealed.
A redacted version of the in camera affidavit was later released in response to a FOIA request by the researcher Michael Ravnitzky.[4] It showed that most of the records were communications intelligence reports from intercepts of foreign communications, including a 1971 exchange between two aircraft and a ground controller about a "phenomena", and reports of luminous objects over other countries. Among the titles was an internal draft monograph, "UFO's and the Intelligence Community Blind Spot to Surprise or Deceptive Data".[4] Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said the government did have something to hide, but that it had nothing to do with extraterrestrials. He added that the affidavit neither discounted nor addressed the UFO phenomenon.[4] A less redacted version followed in 2014.[7] See NSA Yeates affidavits.
Later activities
- "We want the bodies". In 1983 CAUS filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, demanding that the government produce any alien bodies it held. The filer, Larry Bryant, told reporters: "We want the bodies."[1]
- Virginia. Bryant also sued Virginia's governor for information about "the clandestine invasion of UFOs within Virginia". CAUS lost the case.[1] The Wikipedia account names the governor as James S. Gilmore. The sources read here do not give a date for the suit.
- Corso. After Philip Corso's 1997 book The Day After Roswell, Gersten sued the government on behalf of CAUS for documents on the UFO retrievals Corso described. The suit was dismissed in April 1999 by Judge Roslyn O. Silver of the District of Arizona.[3]
- Phoenix Lights. On 22 January 1999, as executive director of CAUS, Gersten filed a FOIA suit in Phoenix for records on the 1997 Phoenix Lights and a triangular sighting in St Clair County, Illinois. The Defense Department moved to dismiss, saying a reasonable search had found nothing.[8] See CAUS Phoenix Lights lawsuit.
Gersten also represented J. Allen Hynek, and in the mid-1980s he unsuccessfully represented Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum in their $20 million suit over injuries they said they suffered in a 1980 UFO encounter.[3] He appears in the 2013 documentary Mirage Men.[3]
Decline
Some ufologists became critical of Gersten. The Wikipedia account quotes accusations that he turned "the once respectable CAUS into a fringe new age association".[1] By the early 2000s the organisation was run from Sedona, Arizona.[2] As of 2023 CAUS was listed as inactive, with its non-profit status revoked.[1]
On the UAP Timeline
- State Department "no records" reply (1978) (19 January 1978) — The State Department says it has no UAP records; a requester sends it one of its own documents.
- CAUS lawsuit and the CIA UFO papers (15 December 1978) — Researchers claim the CIA ran secret emergency UAP studies during sighting waves.
- NORAD's $294,157 search fee (September 1979) — NORAD says a search for UAP tracking data would cost $294,157.
- NSA Yeates affidavits (1980) (18 November 1980) — In a lawsuit, the NSA files a public and a secret affidavit about its UAP records.
- CAUS Phoenix Lights lawsuit (22 January 1999) — A civilian group sues for records on the Phoenix Lights.
References
- Citizens Against UFO Secrecy — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- CAUS mission statement (archived 2004) · web.archive.org · archived copy
- Peter Gersten — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
- Leonard David, "Files opened on National Security Agency UFO investigations", Space.com · space.com
- Gerald K. Haines, "CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–90", Studies in Intelligence (1997) · sgp.fas.org
- "CIA Papers Detail UFO Surveillance", The New York Times (1 Jan 1979), as transcribed by Patrick Gross · ufology.patrickgross.org
- UAP timeline published with Michael Shellenberger's 2024 congressional testimony, entry for 18 November 1980 · oversight.house.gov
- UAP timeline (Shellenberger testimony), entry for 22 January 1999 · oversight.house.gov
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Citizens Against UFO Secrecy”, “Peter Gersten”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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